BOOK REVIEW! SWELL MAPS 1972-1980 BYJOWE HEAD (Sound on Paper, 2021)

When I heard there was a book about noted English avant punk noisecapaders Swell Maps written by one of the group's own members you can bet that I really was on the get-go to obtain a copy of it for myself. After all, any pre-eighties rocknrollers who've been compared to a wide array of upper echelon acts from the Red Crayola to the Shadows of Knight with all Velvet points in-between is guaranteed to get this particular fanabla's remaining brain cell poppin' on all cylinders.

And can I help from sayin' that SWELL MAPS is the kinda book that really does have a whole lotta satin' goin' on, even if Map-ster Head's writing style is, howshallisay, rather Sahara-esque. But so what since the saga he unveils is one that I'm sure a good portion of you older readers can relate to, and I guess could reallyreallyREALLY  relate to if you were one of those seventies rich kids I usedta hear about who had enough money to not only buy all the records that your personal sense of style could handle but had enough left over for a subscription (speedy air mail even!) to the NME and thus knew alla the pertinent facts back then which took me fortysome years to eventually discover!

It's got a turdload of information including (besides Head's arid style) old articles taken from various weaklies both at home and abroad, a discography which even includes all of those side projects that were difficult to locate, and best of all an EP with more of what I hope will be a deluge of vault finds to hit our spinners in the years to come. The music is surprisingly solid ranging from various sixties garage band refs with a tad of Syd here and there to those weirdo sound cutters that these guys have been cranking out since the early-seventies. If yu still have those old Systematic and Rough Trade catalogs stuffed withing the cracks of your fart-encrusted boudoir you're bound to gobble this one faster than Linda Lovelace on a horny German Shepherd!

THE BLOG TO COMM INTERVIEW---DAN FEINER!

OK, you probably don't know who Dan Feiner is, but I'm sure you all remember Jesse Farlow, the creator/edito/publisher of the classy early-seventies fanzine we all know and love as BEDLOE'S ISLAND. Part of the first wave of rock fanzines (y'know, before the rest of us morons caught on), Dan and Jesse are one and the same (for reasons you will read about below), BEDLOE'S ISLAND was one pretty solid read devoted to the more British slant on the music scene of the day with what I would call rather top notch writing and a rah-rah section (Greg Shaw, Mike Saunders...) that just about any true fanguy up to his shoulders in the rock ephemera of the day I'm sure strongly appreciated. An excellent endeavor that unfortunately has been forgotten by way too many so-called rockscribe "saviors"  who are more content to heap praise upon some of the most disturbing drive to ahve passed as rock 'n roll "criticism" these past fortysome years.

I got together with Mr. Feiner at his spatial apartment where, after a few shots and tokes, we got down to as many brass tacks as  Ben Fong-Torres did with Lester Bangs in the infamous BRAIN DAMAGE interview. Well, no, not really...

BLACK TO COMM-OK, now which is your real name, Dan or Jesse?

DAN FEINER-My real name is Dan Feiner. When I was a sophomore or junior in high school I realized my need to obtain and hear music vastly exceeded my ability to purchase it. Attempts at fraud (intentionally warping and then returning and exchanging records I was tired of) and petty crime (assisting a friend shop lift albums) were not successful. Third scam was the charm. I volunteered to write reviews for the local newspaper. A few record companies sent me promo copies to evaluate. When I started BEDLOE’s I figured I could get records at the fanzine as well as the newspaper by publishing it under a different name and address. So I created Jesse Farlow and used my dad’s P.O. Box as an address. I got a few double shipments but in short order stopped writing the free column and focused on the fanzine. Rather than straighten out the name situation, I just stayed Jesse for my music writing.

BTC-OK, I'll address you as Dan from hereon in. Anyway, when did the first issue of BEDLOE'S ISLAND come out?

DF-I would have guessed 1970 but reviewing some of the content, there are references to events that occurred and albums that were released in 1971 so that must be the year. I know I was still in school when it came out so officially, sometime prior to June 1971.

BTC-I'm really surprised at the overall quality of the first issue. Certainly not a "crudzine" as one fan remarked. The influence of THE NEW HAVEN ROCK PRESS seems to linger in these pages. Was this fanzine an influence? You also mention Greg Shaw in your pages so I gather BOMP! was as well.

DF-Hi Chris: Thanks for the kind words. The crudzine comment really hurt at the time. But rather than dissuade me from continuing I think it just encouraged me to do better. And, I believe, that progress can be seen in each subsequent issue of BI. The odd thing about the comment was that Greg Shaw was more than an influence on me. He was, I believe, what ultimately motivated me to start the zine. I can’t recall where I first encountered him. I know it was in an article about fanzines but I can’t recall the publication. I’d guess Rolling Stone. I most likely wrote to him, received encouragement and guidance, and got to work. I also name checked King Harvest Review in that first issue so I suspect I must also have corresponded with Robert Wilson.

Jon Tiven was an influence but I’m not sure if I had encountered him yet when I began publishing. I didn’t mention him so I’d guess not. I did subsequently meet him and get a bunch of NHRP issues. I went to college my first year in Vermont. I didn’t have a car so my parents drove me up there when I went and also when I returned after winter break. On one of those trips I arranged to meet Jon in New Haven on the way up or back. I recall going to his house and meeting either Gary Lucas (subsequently Capt Beefheart I believe) or Mitch Kapor (subsequently Lotus Notes) there. Jon was about my age and we got along. He not only helped me with the zine but provided me with what is still one of the more memorable events of my life, the invite to and attendance at the First Annual Rock Writers of the World conference in Memphis.

BTC-What were you listening to at the time? I sense an obvious prog/import bin bent to your collection.

DF-First and foremost British blues. Mayall, Fleetwood Mac (three guitar version), Chicken Shack, Savoy Brown etc. I loved them all. I’ve gotta laugh now at the self-assuredness with which I dismissed the Chicago blues anthology. I also really liked the English folk rock bands, especially Fairport, which later graced a cover. I got to bring them to Goddard when I went there. Goddard being Goddard I wrote it up as an education experience and got college credit for it. Which was summarily taken away when I transferred to Syracuse my junior year. Oh well. 

I pretty much liked anything foreign. I think Virgin records started around that time and I really liked their bands to. Other big faves were the Kinks and pre-Tommy Who.

I can not answer how Carole King made the cover and received a favorable record review. Perhaps one of my contributors wrote that.

BTC-What was the press run, and how did you distribute them?

DF-Now that tests my memory. I think I printed about one hundred. Somehow I got it out there that I had published it as I think I had about 10 subscribers, one of which I still recall was in Klamath Falls, OR not the kind of place one would expect a fanzine devotee to reside. Mostly I think I gave them to school friends and, of course, record company promo folk.

BTC-You brought to my attention New York scene mover and shaker Ruth Polsky's involvement with the early issues. Care to tell us more about her and her involvement with BEDLOE'S ISLAND?

DF-Ruth Polsky was a high school classmate of mine and one of my best friends during those years. I recall we talked on the phone endlessly, baring our teenage souls. I regret I was too young, unformed and unsure of myself to fully appreciate her strength, independence and creativity at that time. I don’t recall specifically what her role in Bedloe’s Island was. It doesn’t appear she wrote anything but I’m sure she must have encouraged me and perhaps helped with editing and assembly of the issues. I don’t recall having much contact during our college years but we must have stayed in touch as an old friend of mine recently reminded me we went to a Springsteen concert with her in the summer of 1974 or 1975. After Ruth graduated from college she got a job in NYC at some magazine publisher. The next thing I knew she was booking bands at Hurrah and Danceteria, spending time with name acts in the UK and arranging U.S. tours for them. I recall visiting her once during this period in NYC and feeling like her country bumpkin cousin. I’ve thought about her a lot in the years since her death. I wish we could get together for a Zoom call and catch up.

BTC-How many issues of BEDLOE'S ISLAND came out anyway?

DF-That proves a tougher question than I would have anticipated. I have copies of four issues. I’m pretty sure the Fairport issue (identified as #4) was the last one I did. I don’t have a copy of the issue with Alice Cooper on the cover that you show on your site. I remember working with that photo but interestingly I don’t see an issue number located on it. Do you have it? If so, does it replicate one of the other issues before Fairport. I might have changed covers. What is curious is that the price is more than any of the other issues .35 as opposed to .25 for Fairport. Maybe it was issue 5? So the direct answer to your question is four, possibly five, issues. Now that you have issue 1 you may be able to answer this question better than me.

BTC-Can you tell us more about your non-BEDLOE'S ISLAND writing?

DF-Before I started BEDLOE'S ISLAND I wrote weekly columns for two newspapers in my hometown of Toms River, N.J., the Daily Observer and the New Jersey Courier. I believe at that time they were both weeklies. My byline was Dan Feiner. BEDLOE’s occupied my writing in 1971 and 1972. I managed to land a review of the Help Yourself album Beware the Shadow in the May 1973 issue of Phonograph Record Magazine as Jesse Farlowe. In the fall of 1973 I transferred to Syracuse University and wrote regularly about music for an alternative weekly, The Syracuse New Times. After graduating with a degree in newspaper journalism I got a couple of reporter jobs in New Jersey, first at the Atlantic City Press and then at the Daily Observer. I covered municipal government and didn’t write about music at either of those publications. I published as Dan Feiner. In 1977 I moved to Seattle and wrote for the Seattle Times, an alternative weekly. I might have written about music but focused on municipal government there. 

As an aside, when I was looking for clippings of my newspaper articles, I found a copy of the Bedloe’s Island issue with Alice Cooper on the cover. I’d completely forgotten that there was indeed a Bedloe’s #5. It appears to have been published in the Summer of 1972. That is the issue with the advertisement for Fish and Chips Imports. By that time, I had made contact with the folks at JEM Records in S. Plainfield N.J. Mostly I bought records for myself but I did sell a few by mail order and at Stockton State College. I met Pete Frame of ZIGZAG and the Rock Writers of the World conference in Memphis and finally made it to the U.K. in the summer of 1973. I was supposed to assist JEM open an office in London but mostly I just slept on the floor of their office space. Peter Tomlinson joined me in London a week or two into my visit and we made our presence felt at concerts and record companies, stores and labels for a couple of what was then for me, wild weeks.

The critics conference and the month in London provided me with the best source material I would ever have had for BEDLOE’s but I guess my flame had burned out and I never published anything about them or an Issue 6 of the fanzine.

BTC-Can you tell us more about the rock writer's convention/ Meet any famous scribes of the day there???

DF-The critics convention remains one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I recall getting the mailed invitation and not immediately understanding that it included air travel, lodging and all events associated with the gathering. I am virtually certain I owe my invitation to Jon Tiven who was close to Ardent Records as I recall (so much for critical objectivity) and a great champion of Big Star who were the showcase live act of the event. To my memory everyone who was anyone in the world of rock writers was there. Because they figured in subsequent events I know I met and/or hung out with Peter Tomlinson, Crescenzo Capece, Pete Frame from ZigZag, R. Meltzer, Ed Ward. I’m sure there were countless others, Lester Bangs, Dave Marsh, Mike Saunders but 49 years later it is all a bit of a blur. 

Two events, sort of connected, are indelible, however. Crescenzo was not an invited participant but was crashing with Peter T as I recall. There was an open bar in the club where Big Star was playing. I wasn’t much of a drinker (I had favored other intoxicants in high school and early college) and knew nothing about mixed drinks. I was determined to take advantage of the free liquor, however, so I headed over to one of the bars and asked the bartender what the most expensive drink they had was. He told me it was a Zombie and I said I’ll have one. Big mistake. I took one sip and decided it was undrinkable. At that moment Crescenzo walked by and I offered the drink to him. He took it. Big mistake. I went back to the bar and ordered the only other premium beverage I knew about, a glass of Heineken. I think I had a second one after the set by Larry Raspberry and the Highsteppers. While waiting for Big Star to take the stage I walked out on a balcony that was a floor or two above the street. Someone walking by said “hey man, give me a beer” and I complied, sloshing some of mine over the railing onto him. I have no idea why I did that. Really big mistake. There must have been a bouncer on the balcony behind me because almost instantly I was grabbed and escorted out of the club and onto the empty bus that had taken us from our hotel to the concert. I wasn’t allowed back in and missed the rest of the event, including Big Star and what I recall hearing was some sort of Meltzer incited mayhem on stage. 

Knowing the hard living, heavy drinking reputation of many of my fellow attendees, I still shake my head in disbelief that inexperienced, innocent and intimidated Jesse Farlowe was apparently the only celebrant to be 86’d from the event. I think we were staying at a Holiday Inn. I recall riding up to our rooms in an elevator with Crescenzo who was sitting on the floor looking well worse for wear. When we arrived at our floor of the hotel, two other attendees  grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him out into the hallway. The next morning I went to Peter’s room before breakfast. Crescenzo was there. He said he had puked all night and that the bedsheet was so full of vomit they had just tossed it out the window and down to the roof of the restaurant below. “Every time I puked,” Chris said, “all I could taste was your goddamned Zombie. I never saw Crescenzo again. 

Peter Tomlinson and I connected in London later in 1973 and hung out with Pete Frame. Peter T and I connected in NYC a couple of time in the past decade and keep up on Facebook.I finally got to see Big Star play in 1974 at a small club in Syracuse, NY. I interviewed Alex Chilton for the planned, but never produced, Issue 6 of Bedloe’s Island. When Peter and I reconnected he told me he had been interviewed for the Big Star documentary Nothing Can Hurt Me. I managed to obtain a screen grab of part of the invitation list for the Memphis conference. The page I captured included Jesse Farlowe as one of the invitees.

BTC-So, what has been going on with you since the days of BEDLOE'S ISLAND?

DF-So basically what have I been up to for the past half century? 😀

I graduated from Syracuse University in 1975 with a degree in newspaper journalism. I worked as a reporter in New Jersey for two years and then moved to Seattle, WA. I worked at an alternative weekly there for a bit and then took a much-better-paying PR job at a trade association. Bored shitless, I quit and enrolled in law school in Portland, OR. I graduated in 1981 and soon took a job as a prosecutor in a nearby district attorney’s office. In 1985 I left and started a solo practice as a criminal defense attorney. I retired at the end of 2017. Along the way I worked on some fascinating cases including the Portland 7 terrorism case, the ALF/ELF conspiracy case that included the bombing of the Vail ski resort and the international marijuana importing case that was the subject of the book Reefer Men. Most memorably (and most appropriately) I defended Portland rock club owner (and former Fillmore East employee) Larry Hurwitz on a murder charge. Anyone interested in that story, which warrants a book for sure, can do an internet search on Larry Hurwitz Starry Night.

I think one of the circumstances that led to the discontinuation of BEDLOE'S ISLAND was a change in my relationship with music and the music scene as I experienced it. As I aged and started thinking about a career and my need to support myself music became less a source of my identity and more an interest. That said, it remained my primary interest into my 50’s. I think I felt the change starting when I was still envisioning an issue 6 of Bedloe’s. My difficulty articulating it at that point (I’ve only recently been able to more fully understand what was happening for me) probably was a major factor in letting the zine pass.

That said, my desire to see shows and amass albums did not diminish much after the press passes and promotional pressings became fond memories. At one point I took a hiatus from rock and started listening to reggae and 50’s and 60’s era jazz almost exclusively. In the early 80’s I became somewhat obsessed with Scottish (Postcard Records) and New Zealand (Flying Nun) bands. Somewhat belatedly I discovered Americana and attended SxSW from 2001 to 2004. That first year I reconnected with Chip Lamey who I had palled around with back at Stockton State College in New Jersey. He was a SxSW vet and a great guide for me. In 1996 I went to see Steve Wynn at a small Portland club. I was standing near the entry way when someone walked in and said he was on the guest list. The person working the door asked his name and I heard him answer, Richard Meltzer. I confirmed he was R. Meltzer and introduced myself as Jesse Farlowe. I’d be surprised if he remembered me or that he contributed an article to BEDLOE’s. I think he was living in Vancouver, WA (a Portland suburb) at the time. I thought it might be interesting to track him down and document it but as is not unusual for me, I got sidetracked and nothing ever came of it. I’d love to reconnect with him and talk old days.

As I mentioned in an earlier response, I’m still in touch with Peter Tomlinson, primarily through Facebook. We’ve connected twice in NYC in the past decade. The frequency of my visits to New Jersey have diminshed since both of my parents have passed and my sister moved out of the area. But I hope to get back at some point soon and hang out with Pete again.

Thanks for maintaining the fanzine flame and your interest in BEDLOE'S ISLAND. Those days and my experiences in them are now so far in the past that they feel somewhat like a dream. But a very vivid and memorable one.

Well, it's happy ol' me again as you can see from the photo on the left, once again presenting for youyouYOU an episode of BLOG TO COMM that I'm sure is gonna tickle your tootsies alla way to Coraopolis and back! An' this particular entry ain't one of those piddling reviews of some comic book or tee-vee series such as the kind I've been shovin' at'cha these past few months neither! Naw, its a hugie that I'll bet will make your eyes swirling and have ya kicking up yer heels more'n Kamala Harris ever did! 

Anyhoo I hope'cha dig the following spew given just how much time I hadda put into it. Especially in between alla those real-life doodies I have to tend to during these unfortunately overworked days. Just bear w/this guy a bit because, frankly I'm way outta condition and the following just might come off a bit...wonky to most of youse out there in real life land.

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Okay, you inquiring minds want to know at least some of the ugly details that have been curtailing my delivering the goods the way I should. As for one---howzabut the fact that I hadda endure getting my left eyeball worked on at Allegheny General Hospital in merry Pittsburgh Pee-YAY! due to a torn retina, and the nitrogen gas bubble that was injected into my bare eyeball in order to push the retinal wall back into place (almost thought this procedure would be a re-enactment of UN CHIEN ANDALOU!) has created a large jiggly circle in my line o' vision that kinda looks like Rover going after Patrick McGoohan right in my very head (either that or the front cover of the Quiet Sun MAINSTREAM album)! To be honest and up front about it this paerticular happening in my usually dullsville life ain't exactly a funzy thing to be enduring...in fact it's hampering even more my ever-decaying vision which is probably the reason why I'm making alla these typos that I will be too stoopid to correct once my sight returns to somewhat of a normality hopefully in the near future.

Other'n that I've been trying to amuse myself in ways quite different than I did when I was fourteen stuck alone in the house with an old NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC hidden under the mattress. Interestingly enough my current faverave time of the day anymore just hasta be six in the evening when I settle back for my nightly viewing of MANNIX on FETV, a switch from the re-re-REruns of GUNSMOKE I've seen over and over again these past few years. MANNIX usedta be a weekly staple at the ol' homestead at least until the Orson Welles/Lillian Gish anthology of silent classics entitled THE SILENT YEARS ran opposite, and watching these ubercool episodes featuring high energy action and characters you can either root for or  wish the worst calamities upon really does remind me of just how hotcha things usedta be, at least until the sensitive mollycoddled pantywaists known as "progressives" or at least "world savers" mucked things up for good with their general castration of everything they laid their grubboid hands upon. Koinda makes me wanna don a seventies sports jacket just like the kind Mannoix wore and knock a few pampered menials (including a good portion of you readers) around until you get some SENSE (regarding the affirmation of the concepts of good/evil and masculinity/femininity) into some skulls that certainly do need some heavy duty pounding into these sad 'n sorry days.

While I'm at it, a fond farewell to Big Brother Wally a.k.a. Tony Dow, who I guess really is dead after a slightly premature call akin to the false report we received regarding Tom Petty a few years back.

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I might as well ( mean---I BETTER!!!) thank a whole lotta people out there who, bless their little peen-pickin' hearts, really do care  'bout me and this particular effort I have torn asunder over the past eight or so months. To those of you who've sent in promo items thanks, though some of your understandably fine efforts (talkin' 'bout YOU Feeding Tube!) will have to wait until I can get my turntable hooked up again (It's a long story I will not bore you with since I get the feeling that you guys are bored enough already) while Paul McGarry's continual dropping off of burnt Cee-Dee offerings also helps out loads even if I have less time to settle down and write these reviews up than I had last year at this time (a situation I sure hope changes in the distantly near future). And of course there are those Cee-Dee-Ares that P.D. Fadensonnen sent past X-mas are still handy enough for me to slap on during those particularly introverted moments in my life. Of course Bill Shute should also be praised for remembering my birthday a few weeks back with a package of old comic books and comic book reprints which I will get to in earnest once I regain some semblance of what it used to be life back inna good ol' days. Anyway, hope you like 'em, and hope on I will...

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BLOG TO COMM sez: choose YOUR punk! And yeah, who in their right might woulda known that the infamous Mr .Rotten would have grown to become the profound one when it came to punkdom anyway??? To be honest about it Henry is right for once since guns are for weak people...I mean, do you really think a 98 lb. grandma can fend off a 200-pound attacker with her mere fists? As the old saying goes, "God created all men---Col. Colt made them equal"!

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Divine Horsemen-HOT RISE OF AN ICE CREAM PHOENIX CD-r burn (originally on In The Red Records)

Gotta admit that o'er the past few decades I have NOT played any of those late-eighties Divine Horsemen platters that are scattered about the collection. Dunno why because they were good enough efforts to appeal to my own sense of long-lost rock aesthetics, or something like that. Perhaps they remind me of a pretty dire time in my life which ain't really saying anything considering just how dire my life has been ever since I entered kindergarten. 

 However, this 2021 release by the new if aged group is pretty hotcha --- not over-the-top engrossing like the Flesheaters were but steady enough to appease any of you fans out there who have at least a few vivid and pleasant memories of early-seventies FM rock radio still embedded in your minds. Chris D. and Julie Christiansen still moosh well enough to please the ears and hey, even though I kinda thought the Horsemen were comparatively piddle next to the A MINUTE TO PRAY=era 'eaters this one does have more'n a few ounces of pure rockist merit to its makeup. Of course I'll never listen to it again.

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Dredd Foole and the Din-SONGS IN HEAT CD (Corbett Vs. Dempsey Records)

This guy is perhaps the last true Bostonian devotee of the long-running Velvets homage brigade dating back to the Boston Tea Party days of Jonathan Richman and Wayne McGuire. And, of course, these '82 recordings with a bulk of what at the time was Mission of Burma doing the backing do have the ring of fading seventies underground bumping into the dank miasma of the eighties with a storm clash of bared-wire intensity that one won't forget for quite awhile. Basic hard repeato riff backs Foole/Ireton's throat scrapes which evoke the best rock screamers of the past from Iggy to Roslie and, of course, alotta of your faverave sixties flashpoints can be heard and with relative ease at that! (Please be sure to check out the hidden track which even threw a heard it all before kinda guy like me for a loop!)

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The Shangs-SONNY BONO TEAR DOWN THAT WALL OF SOUND CD (Judigee Records, Canada)

The marvelous glop slop production makes the latest Shangs effort even more of a spacious effort than one would have expected from their earlier releases. David Nelson Byers sounds more late-sixties El Lay sunshine pop than his Ontario locale would lead one to believe while the music's just about as slick pop pretend avant garde as you can find outside of, say, Sagittarius. Paens to some of the greats in the Shangs oeuvre are present...the Feminine Complex, Craig Smith (feh!), Joanie Sommers (yay!), Ash Ra Tempel with Timothy Leary (yeeesh!), the Lennon Sisters????

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Oliver-STANDING STONE CD (Guerrsen Records, Spain)

Sorta like nasal Dylan gone English late-sixties folk. Actually this has a heavy ESP-disk loner style a la Mij, though it certainly is not as expansive as Erica Pomerance. Some Bee-Fartian blooze chooze slips in, 'n ain't that more'n just a li'l Davy Graham here/there as well? I hope that ain't Donovan I'm vibing. Man, this guy sure is an eclectic chap now, ain't he??? Overall kinda West Coast-y in a good time Marin County sorta vein but it sure ain't patchouli smellin', ifyaknowaddamean....

(Hey, note that NOT ONCE did I mention anywhere in the above paragraph the Oliver of shoo-be-doo-be-da-da fame making some lame joke about how I thought this Oliver was that one as someone so OBVIOUS as myself would be wont to do given just how in search of a bad pun or reference I tend to be. I have prided myself on this simple fact and y'know what? I get the feeling that you are happy about it too. Yeah---right...)

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The Slits-THE KEYSTONE, BERKELEY CA NOV. 23rd, 1980 CD

I really thought much of the Slits back in the maybe not so good ol' days but then again they, like a good portion of the Rough Trade/post-punk (yech!) cadre, sorta tired on me with much of that punk rock promise and spark thrown to the wayside in favor of some rather tired ethos that made me doubt my original faith in these groups in the first place. Here they are somewhere in the cusp of it all doing more of that angular music which, in some strange fashion, at times almost echoes the more abstract music heard on the first Alice Cooper album.  Ari and company can actually play some surprisingly engaging modpop before slipping into the usual faux reggae and neo-soul moves probably in order to prove to everyone that they really do like black people after all. It does sound like something you'd expect from a buncha gals who cut their musical parameters on Velvets, Stooges and krautrock records (mixed in with the usual Roxy/Bolan touchpoints) and used their influences to the max, at least until the eighties hit and it all became water under the bridge anyway.

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AN ARTHUR RHAMES COMPENDIUM 5 DISC BOX SET CD-r burn 

Funny, I only got four burns from this Fadensonnon-derived set (one of 'em musta gotten stuck in with my Paul McGarry donations), but wha' th' hey considering that the music heard on what's left is mighty decent sound and noise signifying everything! Rhames was a multi-instrumentalist who handled his various instruments with marvy aplomb as he (along with the help of such able names as Rashied Ali and some I never knew about until now) zap through various jazz highpoints of the past while fortunately enough avoiding the dismal abyss as to what jazz has become ever since the new thing was treated like old hat by the spiritual successors to Leonard Feather. Recognizable nods to Coltrane and Parker can be discerned via Rhames' tenor prowess, and believe it or not but his duos with Ali evoke not only the legendary INTERSTELLAR SPACE but Ali's Survival platter with Frank Lowe! Not only that but Rhames excels on guitar (not as flash as EMERGENCY-era John McLaughlin but rougher than many of the free jazzers steeped in electricity) and piano (again, not as flash as solo Ra or Taylor but enveloping enough). A fine sendoff to a guy whose career was cut short by a bad case of Magic Johnson's Disease. 

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Jah Wobble-METAL BOX: REBUILT IN DUB CD-r burn (originally on Cleopatra Records)

Like the Can SACRILEGE effort it's nice in an interesting kinda/sorta re-visity way, but next to the real deal it's like, why bother? Again a once-time spinner for those of you curious enough to want to hear the least-exciting member of PiL re-do a forty-plus-year-old accomplishment, but don't come complainin' to me about alla them dead cats bound to pile up at your abode due to such a curiosity as this. 

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Stare Kits-LIVE @ TIER 3 1979 CD-r burn

Can't say that I'm familiar with this act which performed all three of their live gigs at the late-seventies under-the-underground haunt Tier 3 (or Tr3 as I recall it being called way back during whatever heyday the place might have had). After giving this surprisingly hi-quality recording a try all I gotta say is---these guys ('n gals) were pretty hotcha even at a time when the underground rock inna burgh was heading into some rather ginchy areas of self-parody. Stare Kits kinda come off like Siouxsie and company only with lotsa early Blondie and no Can, or better yet the plethora of then-current up-and-coming acts that were saturating what we once knew of as "new wave"---only with less of that junk shop jewelry ethos that got kinda tiresome after awhile. I sure wish there were more underground rock acts like this throughout the eighties 'stead of the MTV glitzers that unfortunately got alla the attention and more or less ruined rock 'n roll (as that feral hard-drive form of anger-addled expression) and if you don't agree with me I'm sure there are more'n a few nude Madonna glossies for you losers to spill seed over, ifyaknowaddamean...

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The Golden Cups-LIVE ALBUM CD-r burn (originally on Eastworld Records, Japan)

Only heard these guys via their psychedelic take on "Hey Joe" that appeared on some mid-eighties Japanese sampler, so this later effort did seem somewhat appealing to me. Too bad it's taken from a 1971 performance which shows that these guys were more'n apt to take the worst aspects of "rock music" to heart just as much as they were to take the best of it a few years earlier. Contains covers of Three Dog Night, Mountain and to an extent the Moody Blues amidst other gems that'll not only remind you of just how blah FM rock coulda been at the time but of the old adage "Whites create, Asians imitate"! You might get some sorta heavy rock kick outta the thing but I sure as shootin' didn't.

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Still looking for back issues of BLACK TO COMM? Judging from the lack ot response I get from these tail end come ons I really doubt it. Wise up for once, willya?

BOOK REVIEW! I THINK HE'S CRAZY!, THE COMICS OF B.K. TAYLOR (Fantagraphics, 2020)

Back in the ol' newsstand reading days I used to love glomming the various B.K. Taylor comics that popped up in the pre-pious issues of NATIONAL LAMPOON. Sometimes whilst reading these sarcastic stabs at domestic living (esp. at a time in life when the soon-to-rot  style of gutwrench was first and foremost in my life) I imagined these these particular comics to be the ultimo in bad taste har-de-har-hars that one could dare come up with, especially in a world where watching those NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC hula girl specials was an especially sneekerino thing to do.  Nowadays with alla the extreme grossness that I've experienced in this life since I can't say that I find these as amusing as I did during my rather cloistered teenbo days. But then again, what is?

Still I can get somewhat of a charge outta a few of them "Appletons" comics which once had me rolling on the department store floor in utter convulsions of gagdom to the point where this grizzled old lady cashier personally kicked me out into the street. Yet another spoof of the old mid-twentieth century nuclear family which is continually held in deep contempt by most of you enlightened types, these comics might deliver a few of the good natured pokes at suburban slob existence that even a lover of such ethos can enjoy, but after awhile Pop Appleton's ruination of his kids' various endeavors can get about as rote as Foxy Grandpa besting his practical joking grandkids week after week to the point for once you'd like to see them brats finally get the best of ol Foxy. Still sometimes I gotta love the way this perverto Ozzie Nelson wrecks things for the younger set with such a beautifully destructive aplomb because well, like he's the last of a long line of the clean cut white guys twith suit and ties who seem to have developed into a monster I just can't reckon with no mo'..

As for "Timberland Tales" well, I can't see any red-blooded Canadian reading these backwoods spoofs of the Saskatchewan way of life without chucking this book into the cast iron stove in utter indignation. However I get the idea that a few of the more, er, anti-authoritan people up there would chuckle at the antics of the Mark Trail lookalike not to mention the prudish but wowzer school marm who gets to show off her ample butt in a shower scene, not to mention the half-breed kid with the overactive gland as well as the "slightly brain damaged" mountie which should appeal to you Canadian readers who have had run ins with the law during certain stages of larval growth. Yer choice, eh?

The rest is---well--- rather disposable what with the Uncle Kunta satire of Joel Chandler Harris getting the best of his white kid pals not punching hard enough to make this as disturbingly brilliant as it coulda been.  For real LAMPOON laughs stick with the comical funnies one. A foreword by the extremely irritating tee-vee star Tim Allen should be a good enough tipoff.

TEE-VEE SERIES REVIEW! MEDIC  STARRING RICHARD BOONE (NBC 1954-1956, RERUNS IN SYNDICATION)

I'm back, but only for a shorter' n short time considering the plethora of doodies I have to be performing at this point in life. However I've got just about enough minutes to clue you in on this rather boffo if oft-forgotten television series which I gotta say, after espying a few Youtube'd episodes, really shines out as far as to what the "Golden Age" of Tee-Vee could come up with. And that's especially AMAZING considering how "backwards" and "Neanderthal-like" not only people but the entertainment they tuned into could be back during those oh-so unenlightened times --- y'know, back when toothless backwoods types were shooting motorcycle enthusiasts from their pickups while the rest of us were keeping trans-children from attending drag queen story hours in Deep South diners, or something like that.

If you think I'm being especially grumpy about it you are for once right. Just thinking about the short shrift that fifties television, and more specifically the fifties has gotten thanks to the phony intellectuals of the past few decades does tend to irritate worse than an undigested peanut in the rectum. It=f anything it takes me back a good twenty years to that major pile on I hadda endure that was instigated by a certain fellow named David Lang (and perpetrated by a rather disgusting specimen who goes by the moniker Jay Hinman, both of whom I hope are suffering untold physical and emotional trauma as I peck this 'un out), a slam against my very existence which resulted in a barrage of ill-minded critiques that were directed at my rather spotless character for reasons not only of revenge but hipster underground cred. Anyway, amongst a slew of virtue signals and righteousness masturbating that went on in these assaults there was one particularly putrid piece of sputum aimed at me which continues to stick in my craw 'n that 'un came from a certain individual whose identity escapes me at this moment. This misguided soul, probably stoked on repeated campfire chantings of "Kumbaya:" for all I know, actually had the audacity to claim that my devotion to pre-"relevance" 'n "right on" television that was prevalent from the fifties until the mid-sixties was bred from my inherent hatred of everything from blacks 'n faggots to womyn 'n other definitely anti-WASP-y forces that were bound to overturn that evil patriarchy that has been ruining our very existences ever since Adam told Eve to go take a douche! Yeah right, as if the concept of QUALITY was totally alien to this particular nimnul's mind.

Ah yeah, I still fondly recall that episode of THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE AND HARRIET where good natured Ozzie and Thorny firebomb the abode of the Negro family that moved into the neighborhood not to mention that LEAVE IT TO BEAVER where Wally, Eddie and Lumpy give that rather effeminate newcomer to Mayfield High what-for in the locker room after said sissy showed his appreciation for the builds of these fine specimens of budding manhood with a ten-hut one doesn't usually see during fall in. Sheesh, if only said commentator had WATCHED some classic fifties tee-vee to see that when people of African heritage were presented (mostly in dramas but also in AMOS 'N ANDY come to think of it) it was always in the the best possible light such as in that one RACKET SQUAD where a kindly black woman rats on a day care scam where some slimy WHITES were mistreating children or even that episode of MR. ED where former Lightnin' Nick "Nick O'Demus" Stewart played a letter carrier totally straight without one hint of slo' mo' retardation in sight. As for women well, they weren't as nauseatingly ascerbic then as they are now and we got enough fagitude with Liberace anyway But eh, you just can't let REALITY get in the way of these walking memes so hell-bent on creating lies to serve their own purpose to the point where they actually start believing the lies themselves!

Which more or less brings us to MEDIC. A pretty much forgotten series that ran on NBC in the mid-fifties, I gotta admit that I wouldn't've have even known about this series had I not read a classic Harvey Kurtzman/Will Elder MAD spoof that still resonates a good fifty years after my first laying eyes upon it. Back then MEDIC seemed like the kinda Tee-Vee series I coulda wrapped my pre-pube mind around but, alas, this series seemed destined to just rot away in old and forgotten television series limbo being aired only on one of those small Los Angeles UHF stations that nobody even in the local area could pick up until even those old syndication reels began to crack up into nothingness leaving a whole lotta tru blu viewers stranded in the current state of television pukeitude.

Tis way too bad, since MEDIC remains a show that not only holds up in its own special way but delivers on that hard and realistic true-to-life style that DRAGNET excelled in. Excelled in even to the point where I will even go out on a limb to say that MEDIC was indeed the doctor show equivalent of Jack Webb 'n company's infamous police drama even to the point where the names have been changed to protect the innocent, or at least the infirmed.

A pre-HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL/HEC RAMSEY Richard Boone plays Dr. Konrad Styner, a physician who pretty much hosts, and at times even appears in these dramas which at least gives him more air time than Dick Tracy had in those early-sixties UPA cartoons where he divvied out alla the dirty work to those then not-so-offensive ethnic characters we all loved anyway. At the opening of each episode Styner is seen setting up the drama to unfold with an "object in point" and a "case in point" usually leading up to a sometimes grisly subject at hand in which the lumpen idjits tuned in get to not only engross themselves in a good enough drama but might even learn a thing or two without getting too bowled over in the process.

Unlike the tiresome preachiness that has infested entertainment for a longer time than one can imagine MEDIC presents its case in a straightforward way that lets you make up your bean rather'n force-feed a whole load of sociopolitical relevancy to the point of nausea only matched by any episode of THE BOLD ONES you unfortunately might chance upon even this late in the television game.

'n these are good shows too, well acted by some of your favorite fifties/sixties tee-vee regulars (Charles Bronson, Claude Akins, John Larch...) and filled with a whole load of real life accuracy to the point where not only does one get some real-deal operation footage that's almost as grossout as Lyndon Johnson's gallbladder removal but actual doctors and nurses seen acting out their true-to-life roles as healers of the sick and comforters of the aged with the eye of an eagle, the heart of a lion and the hand of a woman (something which I'm sure a few of the dykeoids seen theses days will find offensive, and who can argue with a linebacker wearing a use my proper pronouns or I'll brain ya sweatshirt anyway!).

The characters found therein are portrayed to such a point where by golly you can even feel loads of empathy 'n sorrow for them 'n their afflictions. Real life sorrow too like in the one where this cleft palate seven-year-old (older bro played by doomed wonderboy Bobby Driscoll) is razzed by a buncha kids as said razzers' father stands by and says nothing (reminds me of this one kid at the local swimming pool who used to belittle me for my own girth yellin' "SHAKE THAT BLUBBER, SHAKE!" at yers truly while his mother smiled on smugly---years later the two approached me when the kid was now running for public office and boy did they get what for!). Sometimes a historical drama is re-enacted as with the one where Robert Vaughn plays a soldier trying valiantly to save the life of Abe Lincoln or the one about the noted physician who experimented with cocaine and got pretty strung out as a result. But whatever, only a cold cyborg of modern personhood would not have some pity for the deaf cellist or the woman who was struggling through that change o' life that I'm sure many of you readers and to endure thanks to an aging mother or cyster (as I have!).

Speaking of menopause some of you readers'll be surprised at the sexually-related material that pops up in these MEDICs. Remember alla those self-righteous and smug better-than-thous who used to rub their weenies and tacos over how repressed things were inna fifties because you couldn't use the work "pregnant" on I LOVE LUCY? Well you coulda used it on DRAGNET where the subject of knocked up teenagers would often come up (not to mention sexually molested youngsters) and you definitely coulda mentioned these feminine-like things on MEDIC along with periods and other tick-tock-time related sundries which used to be considered no-no subject matters in polite company. But then again who's polite these days where more'n a few Libs of Tic Toc types go out of their way to remind lugs like me as to just how evil we are lest we find the true road to enlightenment that has been bestowed upon us by alla those spiritual role models you just can't escape no matter how hard you try!

Even more astonishing is the downright fact that THERE ARE NO HAPPY ENDINGS PROMISED, OR GIVEN FOR THAT MATTER. Take the one about this rather emotinally stunted asthmatic of a seven-year-old boy whose only friend is his teddy bear. The doc sez that in order to survive the kid has to cut out a lotta food along the lines of milk and meringue as well as have his bear specially cleaned, but when put into the care of a babysitter while the folk are away he gets lemon pie and a glass of milk, is given his old doll back and ends up dying! Sheesh, you woulda thought that mother woulda told the lady in charge what the kid could or couldn't eat!!! If this happened today you could just see the lawsuits flyin' all over the place!

For those of you who think that fifties television (and the fifties in general) were that vast wasteland of conformist goop and other falsities which teachers and other objects of scorn have crammed into your skull ever since that decade came to a merry end may I recommend a nice dosage of MEDIC? Most of them are up and about for free viewing via Youtube...just click the highlighted link in the title and be taken to a sphere that the last twentysome years of "realistic" and "provocative" doctor programs never could aspire to.

BOOK REVIEW! SUSPENSE AND SPACE WORLDS (Gwandanaland Comics)

The late fifties weren't exactly the tippy toppiest times for what would eventually become Marvel Comics, but even a curmudgeonly fanabla such as I's gotta admit that it was an interesting period in comicdom for any funnies historian to study. Well, it is if only to see the teeny tiniest of roots that would blossom into a doggone comic book phenom only a few short years later. An' it sure is a good thing that the minds at Marvel failed to renew the copyright on these early issues of TALES OF SUSPENSE so's we penny conscious peons can give an eye to PD reprints of these pre-hero sagas, especially without having to line the coffers of those megawoke moguls any more'n we have to (same goes for DC and especially Archie!).

But to be downright honest 'n up front about it these stories ain't that hot next to what the early-sixties post Atlas/pre-Marvel monsters 'n heroes titles had in store. In fact a whole slew of 'em just seem leaden and just plain douse with nothing around to flicker my pilot light. Sure Jack Kirby was back in the bullpen after bolstering DC with the likes of Challengers of the Unknown, but stories like "Invasion From Outer Space" really don't cut the comic book mustard the way those Fin Fang Fooms and Groons sure did with the likes of me reading those early-seventies reprints. Besides, Christopher Rule just ain't the kinda inker for The King the way Dick Ayers would eventually be and hey, the stories do get kinda over-read-y with so much dialogue you think that the characters were gonna get squeezed in their panels just like Narda was in the "Manduck the Magician" spoof way back during the comic book days of MAD.

Still there is that nascent proto-Marvel spirit raging through these sagas even if you (like me) never really did cozy up to some of the early Marvel staff (never really did go for Don Heck but wha' th' hey...). The Steve Ditko stories are (natch!) pleasing enough to look at despite the heavy duty dialogue, and a tale like "Prisoner of the Satellites" foreshadows alla them outer-worldly Doc Strange dimensional efforts what with the hapless hero being an unwilling nucleus in an oversized atom.

Again, there is much here that just ain't flibbin' my jib, what with the artwork from such Marvel second-stringers as Joe Sinnott coming off so downright snoozeville and even a worthy like Al Williamson not putting his best efforts into it without the folk at EC looking over his shoulder.  But eh, even these flubs make for great Saturday Afternoon Barbershop Kids reading and like, every molecule on these pages beats anything any of the major comic book conglomerations have sloshed out at us these past fortysome years.

As a "bonus" Gwandanaland slapped on a pre-code one ish effort from the Atlas days entitled SPACE WORLD, a title which proves that even without the Comics Code in effect there coulda been some rather stodgy reads being churned out for the comic book reading class. These imitation Flash 'n Buck efforts aren't anything to cock-a-doodle-do about and when placed side by side with a lotta the competition well...you can just see the depths that comic book cheapness (sans the redeeming trash value) easily coulda slipped into. But so what...I mean hey, ya gotta admit that some of these doofus adlos didn't know shit from PATSY WALKER inna first place!

BOOKS REVIEW! THIS COLLECTION NEEDS HELP! VOLUMES ONE AND TWO (Gwandanaland)

Yeh, they coulda printed the entire run in a number of volumes and in chronological order at that, but I guess even a smattering of HELP! is a heap better'n none at all. Still it woulda been grand to read some of the rarities that have slipped through my collection as well as those old classics like John Cleese in "Christopher's Punctured Romance" not forgetting the classic Tom Poston/Sylvia Miles "Baby It's Occult Outside." Well, at least some of the goodies that I seem to go for like the legendary "Goodman Goes Playboy" as well as Jean Shepard in "The Oldest Story" (which perhaps is the oldest considering how the plot had been done by everyone from Charlie Chase to Joe McDoakes) do pop up.  

But still, it sure woulda been swell to see such classics as Terry Gilliam's "Buster Have You Ever Stomped a Nigra" available for a generation of stodgy purselips, the kind who wouldn't know snarky humor if it came up and bit 'em on those posteriors that always seem to get slammed by the doors they exited no matter how many times we've told 'em to watch 'em on their way out.

So eh, these reprints do skip hop and jump about but at least we got a good gooey portion of pre-pious humor that, as one observer put it, was kinda/sorta like the midway mark between MAD and NATIONAL LAMPOON. Lotsa precedents here as well as holdovers from the fifties style of gut-chuckling (I mean, where do you think the 'pooners got their ideas for alla them "Photo Funnies" anyway?) that should sate whoever out there still has a real sense of offensive humor not seen in ages.

Still, I gotta say that, even with the tons of talent behind the mag it does flounder here and there. Frankly a lotta the fumettis, especially the later ones without the big names to bolster 'em up, kinda fall flat while the load of text was something that I not only passed on then, but now. Even the Jack Davis boxing critique as well as Kurtzman's cartoon commentary on REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT lack the bellyshakes that coulda been yanked out had they not tried to be so adult about it. 

It's when Kurtzman and company stick to their comical roots that HELP! does its best such as in the aforementioned Goodman Beaver story (an ARCHIE satire worthy of anything that the Kurtzman/Bill Elder team coulda whipped up during the fifties)  or in the plethora of movie stills with rather guffawing word balloons added that, although quite humorous in its day, would be considered racist if presented to the current batch of prissies who are nothing more'n those uplifters outta an old DW Griffith Biograph reel updated with plenny o' tattoos and body modifications.

Eh, go get 'em. If you spent your teenbo years pouring through volumes of fifties-era MAD reprints in between your usual comic book scarfing you're bound to squeeze a whole lotta that once-cutting edge but now pretty reactionary style of guffaw inducement outta these volumes. Y'know, that humor that would get more'n its share of self-righteous condemnation from the usual gang of idiots otherwise known as the chattering class (or Antifa, take your pick). But I do tend to repeat myself, so sorry Charlie.

Well, here I iz, at least for the time being. Yes it's been a long time between chats and I've been extremely busy during this past half year or so which has seen my free time dwindle into nothingness, but thankfully I've been able to scrounge up a few piddly hours here/there to crank this grande return post out for the few of you who really do seem to care. So here's the first real BLOG TO COMM entry in quite some time, and given how the internet has been starved for some really in-depth rockscreeding as of late I'm sure you all should be, howshallIsay, rather grateful that I haven't decided to stay away from my doodies for an even longer amount of time than I would have liked.

Now don't go expecting me to crank out posts with the same go-gettum that I have o'er the past two decades since there still is quite a lot for a guy like me to do out there in the real world, but at least be thankful that I'm here doin' this pubelick service in order to teach you ignoramuses as to what real rock fandom writing (NOT "rock criticism" or any derivation thereof) is s'posed to be all about.

To be more'n honest about it I don't really care if you like this or not. I gave up on trying to persuade you peons as to the not-so-finer points of what a firm discussion of music (in the old and long-forgotten gonz fashion) should be like. But man I gotta say that it sure feels great to once again get in front of the keyboard and spew my true feelings regarding everything from sound and the visuals to the art of what is possible (aka politics) as I see fit. And given how pent up I've been this past half-year of not writing a darn thing with respects to that once wild and wooly sound also called rock 'n roll well, it sure is a great relief to get back into gear and once again try to do my darndest to yes, offend alla you readers out there WHO SURE NEED (and deserve) TO BE OFFENDED! As you can tell, I've also been reading a whole load of old NATIONAL LAMPOONs in the interim and I get the feeling that those guys had a handle on what public discourse was s'posed to be about, or at least had a way better handle on it than the precious petunias and their altruistic world-saving yammer that seems to be all in vogue these past few years.

As for a brief encapsulation of some current political thought: well right now I'm siding with Putin since the people who are all agog over the Ukraine (at least the ones I seem to be aware of) are a bunch of hippie pacifist types who deserve to be punished under some yoke of totalitarianism that I hope cracks their spine, while I must admit that it is a hoot seeing prez Biden looking more and more like a total asshole as time passes on. Hey, you guys are the one who wanted him in orafice and of course you deserve all you've cheated for!

Speaking of hoots, I'm sure doin' the ol' knee slaps whenever I encounter the progressive snoots out there defend things along the lines of the so-called "Don't Say Gay" legislation and getting everything wrong about it in their feeble attempts to try and convince me there is even such a thing as a trans child inna first place. If you want a real good hoo-haw just read some of the items regarding this and other pertinent subjects like Elon Musk presented on "The Left Can't Meme" which is listed on the siteroll left of this entry. The one (with regards to the whole Florida/Disney flap which proves that a company that once excelled in cheesy family friendly fun can morph into cheesy woke progressivism) that really made me laugh was this Twitter entry where some airhead argues that alla those Bugs Bunny scenes where he appears as a female in order to bushwhack Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam are in fact early examples of "grooming", the exact same kind that Gov. Ron DeSantis and his followers are bent of keeping outta the local schools fercrinoutloud! I guess this all proves that some seventy-year-old cartoon in which Bugs dons a dress and makeup is the same (physically and morally) as a buncha drag queens reading sappy sagas about young 'n confused turdlers. Sheesh, who do these people think they are anyway, Parker Tyler? Wait until these open-minded world yammerers discover CHARLEY'S AUNT! 

I also discovered something extremely important with regards to some of the political cartoons (which somehow gets wrapped up in the "meme" category which is open to mucho debate) and that is when some big city paper leftist in the old self-righteous Herblock/Oliphant mode (are they any others, at least printed in what is left of the modern day newspaper?) either quotes scripture to suit his own purposes as Antonio proclaimed about the devil in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE or presents Jesus Christ as an advocate of whatever "acceptable" deviant behavior is currently in vogue these days that the sanctimonious hypocrisy meters (and said artist's glee that he used the spiritual leader of his enemies against them!) are just bound to be in the red! As if these people just discovered that oft-loathed religion called Christianity 'r sumthin'! But sheesh, for the life of me I can't see any of these Hornseyesque scribblers even remotely knowing a shard of what Christianity entails other than the fact that just about any biblical quote they can come up with can be taken out of context to fit into any chic belief that just happens to pass their one-dimensional minds. 

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So what else has been up during my lost weekend which turned into a good half-year anyway? Not much because frankly there ain't that many rekkids both old and new that I'd care to listen to let alone waste my money buying. Thankfully there have been some interesting platters sent my way courtesy of the likes of Paul McGarry and PD Fadensonnen, a few of which tickled my hammers and stirrups in ways that can throw even an old fanabla like me way off guard. The internet itself has been a source of some surprises, the best of them all being a youtube entry featuring a rare Milk recording of the infamous "Boy Can I Dance Good" (live at the Willoughby Ohio YMCA!) which was later done up and remade/remodeled by none other than the infamous Pagans. Nice pic they slapped on this one as well, what with photos taken from Milk's appearance at a local outdoor rock festival where they surely must have been the highlight of the program! (Interesting aside---my cyster thinks that Milk sound like Glass Harp of all groups and who knows, you may agree!) For those of you who have the same sorta passion for the entire Brian Sands oeuvre as I do here tis, 'n try to keep your eyeballs inna sockets when espying Sands' classic (not a repro!) Gibson Flying V!:

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OK, here are the writeups of some tasty (and maybe not-so) items that have passed right through my head these past few days (if not months). Old new, but none are borrowed and blue thank goodness. You might be able to get some information if not entertainment from these writeups but frankly, at this point in time I could care less what you people think given your inexcusable lapses in what I would call common good taste and the ability to appreciate music in its rawer, more feral fashion. I mean, our last chance was more than forty years back and like, anything even resembling an attempt to reclaim the glorious banner of rock 'n roll is nothing but a futile exercise. A fun exercise true, but futile.

Aaron Dilloway and Lucrecia Dalt-LUCY & AARON CD-r burn 

One of the things I didn't miss during the past six months of virtual drudgery and thinking of others rather than one's self (yech!) was a good portion of the new experimental noise music that has come my way o'er the past few decades. Not that I don't care for this brew, but a little sure does go quite a long way and maybe in a direction that I don't feel quite comfortable with given just how repetitious these new experimental recordings can be. 'n I'm afraid that this not-so-recent effort from former Wolf Eyes Dilloway with compat Lucrecia Dalt falls into the same vat of noise music as alla those bedroom experimenters that have been cranking out their own soundswill these past fortysome years. For specific tastes only of which you might find specific enough for your personal sense of nervegrind.

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The Hitmen-LIVE RADIO BROADCAST, AUSTRALIA, 1981, STUDIO 221 CD-r burn

Johnny Kannis and company doing pretty fine keeping the Australian high energy scene goin' strong. Sound quality ain't exactly tippy-top but the performance is as all-out as get-out as Chris Masuak roars on like nothing since Wayne Kramer while alla the post-Radio Birdman hard drive will remind you of just how much fun these Australian groups were, at least until the rote rot set in. If you went for the album then go for this, it even (if you can believe it) has a fantastico cover of "Don't Fear The Reaper" which is without cowbell for that matter! It's that good, and perhaps one of the best FM broadcasts since Rocket From the Tombs and that's really saying something!

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Arthur Doyle-THE SONGWRITER CD (Ecstatic Peace! Records)

Solo effort that rarely gets a spin here. Wonder why, cuz Doyle's sax scronk mixed with various mumblings makes for a good "out" effort that might just figure in swell with a good portion of you readers who dumped loads of cash on items the New Music Distribution Service was selling before they went outta biz and ripped a whole lotta people off. I know that a whole lotta you are gonna dismiss this as mere jagoff custom made for those who think that music began with John Cage 'r something as whacked as that, but I find it as up and atcha as a good portion of those AACM rarities that seemed to come and go faster than toilet paper during a diarrhea epidemic.

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The Revelators-WE TOLD YOU NOT TO CROSS US CD (Crypt Records)

Y'know, I didn't think much about a lotta them "new"  Crypt Records releases that came out in the late-90s. Oh they were good 'n way better'n the usual slop, but somehow they just didn't have the same vim and verve of the original sixties rock squawk let alone anything that came in its torrid wake. Shows you just how off-kilter I can get, because here in the darkness of the twenties the Revelators sure sound hot and exciting the way I like my hard-edged rock 'n roll. Not bad at all high energy knock you on your pitted butt music that has that sixties beat but doesn't get all cutesy kitsch on ya with enough real metallic shards to splinter a few ear drums out there in hard rock land. You better like it

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Metal Mike, Allison & Julia-SURF CITY OR BUST CD (Triple X Records)

Post hardcore Metal Mike Saunders doing that hard pop rock which kinda put a whole load of fanablas off way back when, but it sure sounds better'n the usual musings of the day at least in retrospect. The Rockin' Blewz sesh with brother Kevin has that basement-level pre-Beatles suburban slob appeal to it that will probably inspire you to build your own knotty pine rec room. So exhilarating, especially when compared with the dreck that passed for rock 'n roll since at least 1978 when our last chance was up 'n runnin' and you all BLEW IT.

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Various Artists-STICKBALL TEDDYBEAR POOPOO CD-r burn (Bill Shute)

Some pretty interesting rarities here from ex-Gene Vincent sideman Scotty McKay plus the usual asst. of outta nowhere tuneage that shoulda made it but didn't because --- well, maybe they were too GOOD for the world. The usual smattering of strangities from obscure c&w to local rock appear, some of it pretty high-larious in its own way (like the excerpts from some high stool project or something like that from the Lighter Shades where the local hits are ruined with even more right on aplomb than a folk mass! Maybe Bill was in a hippie mood since Brewer and Shipley also pop up here!). And hey, this is probably the only place you're gonna hear Lionel Hampton these days, unless you have video of some old Republican National Convention that is!

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Can I get any subtler? Back issues of BLACK TO COMM are still available so now's the time to fill up those cracks in your collection. Or you can use them to fill up the cracks in your house, it ain't like I really care whatcha do with 'em at this point in time!

I gotta admit that for living in a post-rock 'n roll-oriented world I managed to get through 2021 musically well. Of course I know that rock 'n roll for all practical purposes has meant very little (despite all of the lip service given it) since the advent of hippie anti-mentalities in the late-sixties and really nothing since the valiant attempt to overthrow the "Classic Rock"/stoner boxboy arena rock mentality fizzled out for good sometime in the early-eighties, but for an old fanabla like me at least the malady lingers on. And true, I am to 2021what those old Fire House Dixieland types of groups were to the aging clientele of, say, 1980, but at least I, like those old guys pumpin' away on their tubas, still have some sense of dignity that defies trends and shucks of the week. Too bad there ain't some cheapo television series for PBS to air inna mornings showing the old rockers in their rest homes banging away like there were for fans of the old jass beat a good thirtysome years back.

An' yeah, I gotta face up to the fact that the more we drift away from those "days of the underground" the more I feel lost, alienated and generally out of touch with everything from my duty as a human being to reality for that matter. Pretty much like any broken down old man who was born in a world of relative ease and happiness and ended up in a sewer of a life that was not of his own making.

'n really --- why should we really care as much about music, an idiom which has let us down for most of our lifetimes what with the pallid sputum that once roared mightily just being nothing but a huge embarrassment to anyone who championed the cause hack when it was relatively younger, and fresh for that matter.

Anyhow, here's my best of list for the year, one which I am glad to see in the rear view mirror as I trudge along in life, even though I get the feeling that 2022 is going to make '21 look like a mere walk in the park.

ALBUM(S) OF THE YEAR!-Sex Tide-OHIO (Feeding Tube), Greg "Stackhouse" Prevost's SONGS FOR THESE TIMES (Mean Disposition)

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ALBUM REISSUE OF THE YEAR!-Remko Scha's GUITAR MURAL 1 FEATURING THE MACHINES two-LP set (Black Truffle Records), which proves that Lester Bangs was right when he said the machines were taking over.

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RE-ISHED SINGLE OF THE YEAR!-Ethix's "Bad Trip"/"Skins"(Mary Jane Records), a real wild trip into that part of the sixties that didn't quite jibe with "Kumbaya".

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FOLKIE RELEASE OF THE YEAR!-Myrian Gendron's MA DELYRE (Feeding Tube Records)

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CEE-DEE OF THE YEAR!-Edgar Breau's SHADOWS OF ECSTASY  which shows you that maybe thirty years ain't that long of a wait after all.

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CEE-DEE REISSUE OF THE YEAR!-Tim Buckley's STARSAILOR. This album'll cost you more today than it woulda had you got it in the 49 cent bin in 1972, but then again were you alive in '72? I was but do you think I even had 49 cents back then? For that matter do you think I even KNEW that STARSAILOR even existed? Do you think I would even have been allowed to play this in the house back then?????

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CEE-DEE-ARE ALBUM BURN OF THE YEAR!-KABALAH FUCKEN SYRINGE---actually from 2019 and actually recorded much earlier, but boy has the concept of time mutated as of late!

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MOOM PITCHER OF THE YEAR!-SHOCK CORRIDOR...really woulda liked to  have seen this 'un and THE SADIST battle it out for best pic of '63 at the Oscars!

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BOOK OF THE YEAR!-PUNKZINES a good 'nuff traipse into rockscreeding past which undoubtedly has nothing to do with rockscreeding present, or future for that matter.

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THE "HE'S NOT SO BAD AFTER ALL" AWARD GOES TO---MILO  YIANNOPOULOS!

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ROCK 'N ROLL DISCOVERY OF THE YEAR!-Johannis and his Pale Boys

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SO LONG TO A GOOD THING!-THE COMPLETE DICK TRACY VOL. 29, a  fine wrap up to one of the best comic strips to have hit the boards.

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TELEVISION PROGRAM OF THE YEAR!-a tossup between the RAWHIDE and WAGON TRAIN reruns that have popped up on fetv and insp as of late.

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HOPE OF THE YEAR!-Eric Zemmour. Here's hoping that he and Marine will bury the hatchet and team up to make France the place it was before Focault, Sartre, Genet and the rest of those degenerates ruined its name seemingly for good!

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DEATH OF THE YEAR!-Mike Nesmith.

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RELIEF OF THE YEAR!-the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. Kinda makes me wish I was still steadily blogging so I could rub a few readers who were so anxious to see him spend his remaining days in prison noses in it.

Might re-start this blog up plenty soon, though at this time I don't see any reason why I should. After all, what is there out in soundsville these days that is worth any true hard-edged rock 'n roller's attention anyway?